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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Last Monday on my
lunch break around 1 PM , based on the recommendation of a number of
friends, I picked up a copy of the book Ready Player One by
Ernest Cline from the Carnegie Library. I finished it around 11:30
that same evening. It was a quick read partly due to the writing
style, but primarily because of the subject matter. For those who
haven't heard of it, the following is the book description, lifted
directly from the Amazon page.

“At
once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY
PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming
debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space
opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant
Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade
Runner,
and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s
the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like
most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by
spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual
utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you
can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.”

It's
a love letter to Geek Culture, very specifically Geek Culture of the
1980's. Not that it can't be enjoyed by someone younger. The setting
is a World of Warcraft-like MMO, so anyone who plays modern video
games can relate as well. But, for anyone who grew up at that time,
listening to that music, watching those movies, and most importantly,
standing in arcades playing coin-op video games, this book is a
treasure trove of fun nostalgia and cultural touchstones.

I
lost count of the obscure references that brought back memories for
me. To solve the mystery/puzzle of the game world the characters need
encyclopedic knowledge of a variety of Pop Culture topics. When a
clue from the movie Bladerunner
played a part I flashed back to the summer of 1982 when, working as
an intern at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, my friend
and mentor Doc Falhaber and I came out of a dark theater feeling
drenched and claustrophobic. Thirty years later the oppressive
atmosphere of a neon-lit corporate oligarchy has become real life
(which, in the reality of the novel, is part of what has led to the
state of the world in 2044).

A
significant puzzle is solved by knowledge of the lyrics of 2112, the
magnum opus from the 1976 album of the same name by the rock band
Rush. But not just the lyrics. The original album liner notes
included written narration between the various segments of the song.
These were not a part of the song and only existed in print. I hadn't
thought of that in years but I immediately flashed back to sitting
next to my record player, giant headphones clamped over my ears, and
reading along with the gatefold album sleeve spread across my lap.

But
it was the video games that brought back the most. Though I've played
a few, I'm not really a video gamer now (partly because I know how
hooked I can get and I simply don't have time in my life... it's a
conscious decision on my part to avoid an addiction). But I used to
be. I pumped way
too many quarters into video games in the 80's. I played them all. I
spent hours in game rooms at various malls. There was a Defender
machine at Balsalmo's Pizza in Waynesburg, and I got really good at
it. A few years later the same game at a pizza shop in
Edinboro had a ridiculously low threshold score for winning
extra lives. I once walked away from it with over 40 lives
left. I simply couldn't play any more.

At that same time Fred and I
would make a weekly trip into Erie to get comics. There was a game at
the Millcreek Mall called Ry-Gar that we were stupidly obsessed with.

In
the book there is a passing mention of a game called Gorf. I actually
laughed out loud at the reference, simply because that game is so
tied into something that has become a giant part of my life that I
had simply forgotten the original video game.

It's
like this...

If
you go back several posts in this blog you'll read about the origins
of the comic Fred and I created, Grey
Legacy.
The first appearance of the character Shadowlock was in a series of
short, comedy novellas we wrote. It was in the fourth book
of the series, the only one I wrote the bulk of. The title was Alpha
Atari,
and a lot of the story was based on our shared obsession with video
games at the time. While reading Ready
Player One
I couldn't help but think of our story. A universe that was based on
these video games is something we had written close to thirty years
ago. Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying we were ripped off, or that
our efforts back then were in any way comparable to what Cline
accomplished in this book. We weren't the only ones influenced by
this in the 80's. DC Comics released an officially licensed series
called Atari
Force
(with beautiful art by Jose Garcia-Lopez). I was vastly amused at the
surface similarities though. Anyway, in our story our heroes, all
based on ourselves and our friends of course, travelled to the planet
Gorf and had wacky adventures there.

A
few years later, when Shadowlock became an actual ongoing concern for
us in comic book form, as an inside joke we named his home planet
Gorph. That name survived when we changed the title of the book to
Grey
Legacy
and changed our entire approach. On the very first page of the comic
the character Lesterfarr begins school at Gorphtek University.

I
reference it in the Brix
comic and comic strips I did in the last couple of years. Gorph has
become such a common setting in the universe Fred and I created for
our comics that I had not thought of the actual origin of the name
for many years.

One
note of complaint about Ready Player One, and this comes very specifically
from my comic book back ground.

In
the novel there is a reference to an 80's era video game called
Swordquest.
The premise of the novel is that there is a puzzle hidden within the
game world and the first person to solve it wins untold riches.
Swordquest
was an actual game with the same premise. The first person to solve
the riddle of the video game would win a prize, the "Talisman
of Penultimate Truth." This was an actual prize, created out of
gold and jewels and valued at around $25,000 at the time. It was won
by a guy from Detroit named Steven Bell. I played Swordquest
once or twice. My friend David Ealy owned the game and I spent a
couple of days at his house, playing the game and poring over the
clues, many of which were contained in a comic book that came with
the game.

And
here's where my problem with the book comes in. The premise of the
entire novel is that knowledge of obscure Geek Culture references
were essential to winning the game, and there are countless examples
of references to game designers and movie stars, but when the
Swordquest
comic is mentioned there is no mention its creators. The comics were written by
Roy
Thomas and
Gerry
Conway,
and drawn and inked by George
Pérez and
Dick
Giordano.
These are all legendary names in the history of comics, and in a book
that celebrates Geek Culture, the comic book guys still got ignored.
It's a really minor gripe based on my own interests, and I really
recommend the book, but would it have killed the author to give
credit where credit is due in the world of comics, just like he did
with every other topic in the book?

Anyway,
go read it. It's a lot of fun. One of the most purely entertaining
reads I've had this year.

Friday, December 16, 2011

I received my first review for Scratch on Amazon. You can see it on the Amazon book page HERE.

Or, you can read it here.

5.0 out of 5 stars Good solid entry into the horror/fantasy arena, December 14, 2011

By iloveclones - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scratch (Kindle Edition)

Scratch is my first foray into Amazon's program in self-publishing. I bought it on the recommendation of a friend who knows I like this kind of fiction (horror/fantasy) and because the beginning takes place in a location I'm well familiar with: Pittsburgh Pa, specifically Oakland, the area containing University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Anyone who has ever gone to school here will get a kick out of a VERY accurate footchase from Craig St past the Cathedral of Learning and Carnegie library, and into Schenley Park!

Scratch is a story of a town (Canaan, West Virginia...that one appears to be a fiction, if Google Maps is correct) that is hiding a secret (two actually). It seems some of their ancestors bound a healing angel Gabrielle(and her not so healing brother, Scratch) a century ago. They've been using her to heal their nicks and bruises over the years. It seems a town with a secret like this is prone to some pretty decent nicks and bruises, and would do anything to keep their secret.

The book moves along briskly, but gets bogged down a bit in some dream sequences that I personally am never fond of. The characters are an interesting mix. My one complaint is that I wished that a little more time were spent fleshing them out a bit more. It can be a trick to make "bad guys" sympathetic and vice versa, but I think it was pulled off here.

By book's end, there's a hint of what Gabrielle and Scratch's nature is, and I would like to see a little more. Maybe a sequel.

I'll definitely give Mr Wise's other books a whirl (In fact, the price alone got me to send a digital copy to my friend, another ex-Pittsburgher living in LA)